THE AUTHORS

THE NARRATIVE:

“My grandfather told my father, who in turn told me, the resources are none. That’s why my belly stings when I wake up each morning. That’s why no tears fall when I get dust in my eyes. In every tall bubble you see around us, the authors exist. So does life.

As the world as my family had known it, collapsed, a collective of the most wealthy and influential fought over the fragments of resources that still clung to existence. They were hoarding these remaining resources, and eventually found the ideal means of storage for what they took, the tall bubbles. When the majority of fresh water and resources were used up, the bubbles were left scattered across the landscape as hollow, immovable monuments to a far better and more survivable life. A halcyon. The bubbles exist in this endless landscape as a monolithic collective, ode-to-ignorance, a poem meant to be sung, mocking humans day in and day out. In every tall bubble on the earth, an A.I. exists embedded within, generating the only existing resources left. Now we stand, barely. They control the resources, kept up in the tops of their bubbles. They also control when we move, and where we move. We must follow, in hopes they will continue to give. We do not know for how long. We do not know why. But the authors are imperfect, they malfunction; they die. There are others as well, in various parts of the world, across other landscapes, living near different authors. When an author dies, it causes a mass exodus of the people it once sustained. The people must roam until they find another tower, and with it, another group of people. Assimilation isn’t always easy, and sometimes this ends in chaos, destruction, and war. Other times, peaceful integration and acceptance.

All I hope is tomorrow, our Author lives, and gives once again.”

PROJECT FOCUS:

(As written at WAI Think Tank’s website, you can also view my fellow classmate’s work here as well.)

“Landscapes Without Qualities
Research Design / Narrative Architecture Studio
College of Architecture
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Landscapes without Qualities explores the transformation of the architecture of the great American landscapes after the utopian dream of complete automation has freed humanity from the constraint of work. In a not so distant future, after the implementation of universal basic income, when machines have taken over the processes of production, architecture plays the distinct role of shaping the spaces where new and old activities take place. In these landscapes, the homo-luden or human the player, is freed to perform activities that transcend the three Arendtean points of the Human condition: labor, work and action. In this new Vita Activa, architecture is confronted with a series of landscapes that alter our value system, resulting in a reformulation of the concepts we currently give value to. The result is an architecture that acts as an extension of Landscapes without Qualities.

A series of multimedia installations (drawings, storyboards, film, collages, and models) will depict the alternative outlooks of the architectural landscapes of the future.”

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This project response was designed by me during the 2017 Fall Semester with the guidance and critique of Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski of (WAI Architecture Think Tank) during their term as Hyde Chair Visiting Professors of Excellence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Architecture.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln CoA: https://architecture.unl.edu/

You can view Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski’s work here: http://waithinktank.com/